Obituary: Alec Gallup, Co-Chairman of Gallup

Alec Gallup, who previously served as Co-Chairman of the Gallup Organization, has died at home of a heart ailment at the age of 81.

His father George Gallup Sr established the Princeton-based Gallup Poll in 1935 to gauge public opinion across a broad spectrum of issues. Having introduced scientific methodology to the firm in the mid-1930s, he went on to correctly predict President Franklin D Roosevelt's re-election in 1936, when other polls had forecast a victory for his Republican challenger.

Alec Gallup graduated in Journalism from Iowa University in 1950, and then studied marketing and advertising research at New York University. In 1958, his father created the Gallup Organization to expand his firm into the market research sector, and a year later, Alec joined to focus on sampling procedures, question development and design, and analysis and reporting.

Four years after George's death in 1984, the founder's sons sold the firm to the Selection Research Institute, at which point, they both became Co-Chairman.

During his career, Alec co-authored a number of publications including: The Great American Success Story; Presidential Approval: A Source Book; The Gallup Poll Cumulative Index: Public Opinion 1935-1997; and British Political Opinion 1937-2000: The Gallup Polls.

Andrew Kohut, a former President of the Gallup Organization who is now President of the Pew Research Center, said of Alec Gallup: 'He could smell out a bad question or an unreasonable interpretation of data as well as anyone I've ever known'.